Roger Williams University criticized over handling of threat police say came from former student

A 24-year-old law student at Roger Williams University says that she was mentioned in a threatening email police say was sent to the university by a former law student who later engaged Dartmouth, Mass., police in an 8-hour standoff.

Comment

By
Tatiana Pina
Posted Feb. 5, 2014 @ 9:51 pm

A 24-year-old law student at Roger Williams University says that she was mentioned in a threatening email police say was sent to the university by a former law student who later engaged Dartmouth, Mass., police in an 8-hour standoff Tuesday, yet no one told her about it and let her leave campus unescorted.

Students have criticized the handling of the incident on the Bristol campus, saying they saw an increased number of police in the morning but were not notified until 12:50 p.m. that the officers were there because of the threatening email to RWU staff members.

The university should have notified them sooner that they could be in danger, students told The Providence Journal, because of the heightened awareness of threats on college campuses.

Dartmouth police say Kevin Pacheco, 36, of 209 Richard St., Dartmouth, sent about a half-dozen university law school staff the email Tuesday morning. Detective Kyle Costa would only say that the rambling email talked about social services the university was unable to provide. But law student Caitlin McGuire, who got a look at the email when she was at the Bristol Police Department to fill out a statement Tuesday, said Pacheco, who started at the university in 2011 and left in 2012, was asking for $12 million in lost wages.

It was not clear Wednesday what that referred to.

When the police went to Pacheco’s house Tuesday morning, a standoff developed that lasted several hours until he surrendered without incident after electricity to the house was shutoff. Inside, the police said they found several weapons and books related to becoming a serial killer and manufacturing methamphetamine

McGuire said the email from Pacheco also spoke about his needing medication to help him deal with the way he feels about women. He mentioned his sexual feelings for McGuire. McGuire said Pacheco said several times he was going to “end the school” if they didn’t give him what he wanted.

It was unclear Wednesday what that was.

McGuire said that in 2011 Pacheco had written her Facebook messages telling her of his romantic feelings for her and how he was at her mercy. She said he made it sound like they had had a relationship but they had not. She said that he was in all her classes at that time, but she did not socialize with him. McGuire said the two messages Pacheco sent her were “creepy” and that she told assistant dean of students Lorraine Lalli about them.

She said Lalli told her she would bring the issue to the university’s public safety staff, and told her that if it was brought to Pacheco’s attention, the university would let her know.

McGuire said she never heard anything more about Pacheco until Tuesday morning when she received a text message at 10:01 from Lalli asking her to come to her university office. McGuire said another student who had corresponded through Facebook with Pacheco had also been called in and the police were trying to figure out where Pacheco was.

McGuire said Lalli told her that Pacheco had sent threatening emails to university law staff. She told McGuire that she was not mentioned in the 33-page email but added that she had not read the whole message, according to McGuire. McGuire decided to leave campus immediately and drove home to Narragansett. She said Lalli called her later and told her that she was mentioned in the email but that Lalli was sure that Pacheco would be taken into custody.

McGuire says she should have been told of the threat while she was on campus. “I was the only student mentioned in this threat and no one told me. They didn’t even know where he was at that point,” she said. No one, not police, RWU public safety officers or a volunteer from the law department offered to escort her home, she said.

Deputy Chief Steven Contente said that Bristol police learned of the email threat at 9:38 a.m. He said that it did not appear from the text of the email that anything would happen immediately or that Pacheco was on campus. In an abundance of caution, he said, the department sent all available officers to campus although he would not say how many.

Asked about McGuire and why no one escorted her home, he said the police had received word from public safety staff at the university that she was safe although he did not know at what time the police had located Pacheco at home.

Pacheco surrendered to police at 6:30 p.m.

Police sent Pacheco to St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford for psychiatric evaluation. He was there on Wednesday. Pacheco is expected be arraigned in New Bedford District Court Thursday on charges of extortion and threats, according to the police. Bristol police are still investigating the case and no charges had been brought Wednesday.

Brian Clark, director of public affairs for Roger William University, said that he was limited in the details he could give about the case because of privacy laws and the ongoing investigations. He said that despite the fact that the communication about the email the university sent out at 12:50 p.m. to students on campus contained language that raised concerns, “our public safety team, working jointly with Bristol police, determined that there was no immediate safety threat to the law school, the broader Roger Williams University campus and specific individuals on campus.”

He would not answer questions about why McGuire was not told immediately that she was mentioned in the threatening email or why she was allowed to leave campus without a police escort.

Clark did not say what, if any, action the university took when McGuire told the university about Pacheco’s threatening behavior two years ago.